Romanian study: Half-day old snow safe to eat

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Thursday, February 08 2018
Associated Press

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) -- A Romanian university has published the results of a study on how safe it is to eat snow.

Istvan Mathe, a professor at Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the 2017 experiment showed it was safe to eat snow which was a half-day old, and safer to eat it in the colder months. By two days old, it's not safe to eat.

Conducting the experiment, scientists collected snow from a park and from a roundabout in Miercurea Ciuc, central Romania, in January and February and placed it in hermetically-sealed sterile containers. They then tried to grow bacteria and mold in them.

After one day, there were five bacteria per millimeter in January, while in February the number quadrupled.